5/2/2013 - Debut album from the coed L.A. duo, who’ve already opened for Nine Inch Nails, Garbage and Bloc Party on the strength of an EP, which, if it was anything remotely close to being this cool, easily explains their accelerating success. If you’d love to hear M83 go goth and can deal with Asobi Seksu’s mildly Asian brand of shoegaze, you’ll be astounded at this stuff. Yes, some of it does emanate a whiff of “My Bloody Valentine” wannabe-ism, but it wouldn’t lean shoegaze if it didn’t, right? Whatever, past such devil’s advocate stuff, pardon me while I swoon, especially during album opener “Shanghai Girls,” with its Zola Jesus-style gravitas, big-reverb from-the-mountaintop sound, and futuristic hook. “When the Lilies Die” is an even better song than that, just … alien, for lack of a better word, and thus one can’t help but notice that the duo’s band name isn’t just for show, it’s about aural integrity. Remix-bait “Ecstasy Ghost” recalls Enigma at their dance-iest. Awesome stuff. A